DST-My Host Mom

    In my high school senior year, I went to Idabel Oklahoma, U.S. as an international exchange student. The experience didn’t start well because my first host family was horrible. They were busy, so every day I got to wait till very late night to get my dinner and it was always just a fast food. And what worse was that the home environment was such a mass and I could even see bugs. So one day when I was chatting with my high school counselor, I started complaining my nightmare living situation. However, after a few days at a lunch time, she called me to a side and asked me if I want to stay with her. I had been surprised for a while. I felt happiness just popped in my life. Anyway, on the other day, I moved into her house which was a turning point in my international exchange student experience and so was it in my life. Now I’m going to introduce my host mom, the high school counselor, Carolyn White. And I always call her Mrs. White like I did in school.
    In her house, there were just she and her husband but my life wasn’t boring at all. She and her husband, who are already 50 years old, almost supposed to have retired life; however, because me, they took everything as a big deal to let me experience as many as they could offer. I enjoyed every American traditional holiday from Halloween to Thanksgiving, from Christmas to Eastern. Especially on the Easter, she bought a dozen of eggs back home and color and taught how to make them, which I thought she really didn’t have to do that for me. And in school, she helped me to get involved. As a new coming international student with not very good English skills, I was in a very difficult time at first. I didn’t know where to go and whom to talk with. It was really embarrassing. She quickly realized it. So she brought to church youth group every Sunday evening and encouraged me to join some school clubs. One is school robotic team which I felt so nerdy at first. But After working with my classmates almost everyday after school and then a trip to Oklahoma City for competition, I really had some close friends. Afterwards when I told her how good I felt about those opportunities she offered to me, she said proudly “I’m a counselor; I know how kids feel.” She also took care of my studying. Once I had a book assignment for English class which was way too hard and heavy work for me. But she made a folder which had vocabularies, outline and all relationships between characters for me.
    Time went so fast, and it was almost to the end of my exchange year. One day when we get back from Dallas, we were talking about why she decided to adopt me in the first place. She talked to me sobbingly “I will cry every night if a foreign exchange student can't have a good experience in America.” That was so emotional. A piece of silence, I turned my head and started watching out side. My eyes were watering, although she changed topic to some happy things immediately. It is so true that letting someone stay in your house for a week could be a fun thing; however, adopting a kid and letting him stay for almost a year, which really should be a big decision with so many unpredictable things.
    Although the decision was tough, she made it simple. Her heart is than her mind. She always has a loving heart to help people around her. And people will always have some times struggling in their lives, if we can give them a hand that can be really helpful.